Welcome to fall! 
 
If showing up faithfully in a new season feels hard, you’re not alone. You’ve got a friend in me. Change is hard. Good habits take effort to nurture, while the bad drift in quietly and make themselves at home. Recently at my annual checkup, I wanted a gold star for my daily walks. Instead, my doctor told me to add more weight-bearing exercise. Then he informed me that new guidelines recommend keeping LDL below 70 when I thought hovering near 100 was good enough. So, I ordered a big bag of lipid-lowering psyllium husk. It was described as having an “earthy flavor.” It tastes and feels like dirt. 
 
Good habits are hard. Bad habits are easy. 
 
What’s true of exercise and diet is also true of prayer and Bible reading. Daily responsibilities can crowd out the practices that keep our souls steady. But God isn’t like our physician, scrutinizing our numbers. He’s a Father who invites us to His table. There He satisfies our souls with affirmation (Zephaniah 3:17). He lifts our burdens (Matthew 11:28). He comforts our broken hearts (Psalm 147:3). 
 
Like me, perhaps you remember stories better than Bible verses. Lately I’ve been sitting with the story of Mephibosheth. His name is hard to pronounce, and he had hard breaks. At five, when his grandfather King Saul was killed, his nanny dropped him in her panic, leaving him crippled. Fearing the new king, he hid for decades. His broken body led to broken thinking and a broken spirit. 
 
I understand the instinct to hide when I feel broken. It feels safer than showing up in new, uncertain seasons. But just as King David invited Mephibosheth to his table, our King Jesus invites us to His table, to be filled, and to discover that our broken places are exactly where His love meets us most tenderly. 
  

Don’t wait for heaven to take your seat—grace has already pulled out a chair for you. 

Lisa